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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka's chocolate factory is fantastically updated in this film remake of Roald Dahl's children's novel. The story remains virtually unchanged but is still as captivating to today's audience as the first.

No ticket in this one.

Little Charlie Bucket lives with his extremely poor parents and grandparents, in a tiny shack of a house near the best chocolate factory in the world. He longs to visit Willy Wonka's creation and when the crazy recluse releases five golden tickets to the world Charlie and his Grandpa Joe dream of winning one, and – sure enough – he finds one and turns up at the gates for the tour of his life. After the four other children are slowly picked off one by one, almost like a horror movie (but with chocolate, not knives, hence PG...), Charlie is the only one remaining and he gets the surprise of his life.

The first four children with golden tickets remain as spoilt, arrogant and disgusting as Dahl intended while fascinating the young and old alike. As for our gorgeous little Charlie Bucket, as poor and proud as ever, he manages to stay straight faced as the other (evil) children are shrunken, swollen, squeezed and binned, which is more than the auditorium of ordinary folk did. Willy Wonka comes across as stark raving bonkers and brings a whole new meaning to 'crazy genius': the cynicism, wit and his 'flashbacks' (the only additive to the new chocolate blend - think about it) all add to what I always believed he should be like.

The only teeny glitch was in the Oompa Loompas – or, rather, the Oompa Loompa. As this is a children's movie the casting guys seemingly thought that if they only dressed one little dude in PVC not only would they be able to afford to change his sexy little cat suit between each Oompa Loompa ditty but also that no one would ever know.

They were naïve. We adults noticed straight away; he needed a belt to pull in the plastic and accentuate his curves as he shook his little booty on down! Exiting the cinema I heard a small child tell his dad that he would now have nightmares about the Oompa Loompas; perhaps the film should be a 12A, if not for the sake of the child then for the adults who can't get the songs out of their heads.

But, as Willy Wonka said himself, 'they are people' and therefore technically should have looked different. Even Doris (you'll meet her in the admin section – keep your eyes peeled for a giggle) is the same dude but in a dress!

However, I'm clutching at straws here because I adored this film to pieces. It would have been hard for a movie about the best thing the rainforest ever gave us (excluding oxygen, of course, and meaning cocoa beans) to be terrible, especially when based on a novel by Roald Dahl. For 'innocent' fun I give this film five stars: you're bound to find rude bits and laughs are guaranteed.